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FileRunner: A New Tk/Tcl File Manager

Published in Issue 9 of the Linux Gazette

Introduction

Recently I happened upon a new Tk-based filemanager, written by Henrik Harmsen, who evidently lives in
Sweden. I've been using TkDesk quite a lot lately (see my review in LG #8) so
at first I was struck by the resemblance, but the program upon further
exploration comes from a different philosophy of file-management and fills a
different niche in the Linux software world.

Amigan Origins

I'll let Henrik Harmsen relate to you FileRunner's origins:On my good old Amiga, there were a few great file managers called things
like DirMaster and Directory Opus. They were very simple (in concept) but
highly usable. Especially I came to love the
two-filelistings-and-command-buttons concept which is what I've done in
FileRunner. It's a fast and intuitive way of doing file handling commands as
very many file commands (mv, ln, cp etc) are happy with a source and a
destination argument. It also works great for commands that only take a list
of source files, like an image viewer and an editor. I was considering the way
the FileManager in Windows displays directory trees, but I came to the
conclusion that those tree views are more often than not a nuisance to
navigate. Instead I implemented the cool Directory menu that can take you
anywhere in the file system by mapping directories to sub-menus (even the ".."
directory :-). So, basically I just wanted to get back the high usability I
had with the old file managers on the Amiga (plus add my own stuff like FTP
browsing, the history and hotlist etc).

I had a look at a few other file managers for Unix/X11 but none of them
were even close to the convenient two-filelistings-and-command-buttons
concept. Some were bloated, some wouldn't compile, some needed Motif etc,
and none were intuitive (to me :-). So I set out to create my own. Why am
I just not a happy TkDesk user? Well I started working on FileRunner long
before TkDesk came out and TkDesk wasn't quite what I was shooting for so
I continued on FileRunner. That also gave me exactly the file manager I
wanted, of course :-)

After I read the above explanation, I realized what FileRunner reminds me of:
I used to use a Norwegian OS/2 filemanager called Dirmaster, which was also
inspired by the Amiga filemanagers of yore. It had a layout similar to
FileRunner's, with programmable function buttons and twin directory panes.

It's interesting that software has been around long enough that
traditions have evolved. In the text editor world there are emacs, vi, and
"windows/CUA" strains of editors, while many filemanagers have followed either
a "Norton Commander" tradition, an Amiga tradition, or a mouse-based iconic
tradition, with various hybrid strains emerging and recombining.

Features

FileRunner will inevitably be compared to TkDesk, as they share many features
and are both Tk-based. The two programs aren't really designed for the same
purposes, though. TkDesk is more of a desktop manager combined with a
filemanager, as it has an integral icon-bar which can serve the same purpose
as Fvwm's buttonbar, or several other similar utilities. It's best used as an
app you would open when starting an X-window session and leave open for the
duration.

FileRunner is a much less resource-hungry application which starts quickly and
lends itself to quick tasks followed by dismissal. It uses around one-third
the memory TkDesk uses. It is probably a more appropriate choice for a
slower, memory-constrained machine, whereas if you have a fast CPU with plenty
of RAM TkDesk or Moxfm will run well without using a disproportionate amount
of your system resources.

Among the many thoughtfully designed features in FileRunner, the following I
found to be particularly useful:

A button for each directory pane which will start an xterm or rxvt in
the current directory

Directory hotlists in a drop-down menu

A dynamically expanding directory tree which allows quick traversal of
the entire filesystem

Quick views of text files via a single right-mouse-button-click

Function buttons in a column dividing the directory panes, with
instructions for creating new ones

Menu showing directories visited during the session

Ability to open remote directories via FTP and browse them as if they
were local

FileRunner also has a feature which has become fashionable lately in many of
the newer apps: quick rereading of the configuration file(s), allowing
customization to be done quickly. I first saw this in Fvwm; it's a real
time-saver.

Quirks

FileRunner is almost entirely mouse-based in this first release. I like to
use a mouse, but I'm fond of arrow-keys and page-up and page-down keys as
well. Henrik Harmsen mentioned in an email message that keyboard support is
in the works.

When using the FTP function, any downloading activity prevents you from doing
anything else until its done. A separate process or thread would be nice for
this. One way around this limitation is to open another instance of
FileRunner. The program is small and fast enough that this is feasible.

Aside from these two minor complaints, I found the program to be stable and
reliable. It's a relatively small download; why not give it a try?

Availability

As of August 15, 1996, FileRunner can be found in the /pub/Linux/Incoming
directory of ftp://sunsite.unc.edu and its mirrors. I imagine that it will
eventually be moved to /pub/Linux/X11/xutils/managers.